


i wore his jersey for the longest time

by pissedofsandwich



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Dirty Talk, M/M, Phone Sex, Post-Time Skip, akaashi in bokuto's msby jersey, but lowkey wholesome, lowkey exhibitionist kink, minor spoilers for ch 401
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:47:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25307731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pissedofsandwich/pseuds/pissedofsandwich
Summary: Keiji didn't mean to, but nowadays, he fell asleep wearing Bokuto's clothes.Or: Keiji went through the seven stages of grief trying to send Bokuto tasteful half-nudes.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 19
Kudos: 470





	i wore his jersey for the longest time

**Author's Note:**

> i rlly wrote the softest dirty talk ever. i love bokuaka

He found The Sweater at the bottom of the pile of clothes in Bokuto's drawer, a month into his "super exclusive, super intense" Olympic training in Colorado.

Keiji didn't mean to, but nowadays, he fell asleep wearing Bokuto's clothes. It wasn't a conscious decision so much as it was an accident; his hand just wandered to Bokuto's side when he rummaged blindly for clothes, and he simply didn't stop. He'd been finding hidden gems since then.

Like the eight-year-old first-year Fukurodani jersey, the _ 2 _ in the  _ 12  _ printed across the chest fading away against the test of time and faulty washing machines.

( _ Why'd you keep this one? _ Keiji asked over Skype. 

_ Well, _ Bokuto said,  _ it's the first thing you saw me in _ .)

The ugly, glittery blue t-shirt Konoha won for him at a summer festival was his third find. It had shrunk to an impossible size, but Bokuto had refused to get rid of it. Keiji didn't take Bokuto as a hoarder, but he supposed of all people, Bokuto would be the type to indulge in nostalgia.

(Keiji understood. He still kept his own second-year jersey, after all.)

There were mismatched socks that Bokuto declined to give an explanation to, old knee-pads that he agreed to throw out, a spare MSBY shirt that he forgot to bring along, ugly Christmas sweaters from his mother that he kept just in case, and a holey, threadbare muscle tee that must've been a purchase influenced by Kuroo.

Then, there was The Sweater.

Keiji immediately recognized it the second he held it up. There was no mistaking the faded cream color, the loose collar, or the specific holes he'd punched through the sleeves with his thumbs—it was, indeed, The Sweater, the one he lent to Bokuto at their first Nationals, the very same one Bokuto claimed to have lost in the commotion of the train ride back to Fukurodani after their defeat at semi-finals. 

He was more amused than annoyed that Bokuto had kept it, after all these years. High school Keiji was furious, though, and made Bokuto treat him to onigiri every day after school for upwards of a month to make up for it. Shaking his head in a mix of fondness and disbelief—the usual response when it came to his boyfriend—he slipped on the sweater over shorts (his own, if it had been Bokuto's it would simply slide right off his butt) and considered himself in the mirror, pensive.

Stretched-out as it was, The Sweater still hung oversized on him. Perhaps that was more an indication to his eating habits—or lack thereof, but he was doing better at remembering to eat these days, he promised—than a testament to the quality of the fabric, but the sleeves were still a comfortable length for him, covering most of his palms the way that he liked. It no longer smelled like Bokuto, but it still felt familiar, like finding some loose change in the pocket of his jeans or the folds of the old sofa in the living room.

He took a discreet mirror selfie of himself and sent it to Bokuto.

_ I thought you lost it, _ Keiji added as the caption.

Bokuto wouldn't probably answer until late—timezones, Keiji kept reminding himself—but Keiji had learned to see things from a more positive angle; usually, this meant that the second he woke up, he'd have a slew of texts waiting to greet him. He spared a few seconds examining their chat bubbles, observing the way they texted. Keiji didn't often send pictures, never a fan of selfies or taking one of things, and now that he'd sent one, he found himself second-guessing it. 

It certainly wasn't... naughty—oh,  _ please  _ kill him for using that word in this context—or particularly suggestive. His pose was perfectly innocent: standing in their shared bedroom in front of the full-length mirror, his face partially obscured by his phone, holding up two fingers in a casual peace sign. But there was a strip of skin at his shoulder that was exposed due to the loose collar, and he wondered if it might provoke Bokuto to get... some ideas. The wrong ones.

He felt his face flush.  _ Or the right ones? _

He decided that he was too old to be worrying over a selfie. To save his dignity, he placed his phone screen-down on his nightstand, brushed his teeth, and went to sleep.

He did not spring awake in the morning and rush to get his phone. That would be ridiculous. Instead, he was perfectly composed as he reached over to his nightstand. He managed to keep his heart from beating out of his chest when he noticed the blinking green light at the top right of his phone. 

Bokuto had replied. 

As skillful as he was at maintaining a poker face, it didn't stop him from wanting to fling his phone and also himself out of the window. His dreams were unspeakable and embarrassing and Keiji wanted nothing more than to find out what Bokuto's response was, just to end his suffering.

**koutarou🌠:** keijiiiiiiiiii 🥺🥺🥺

Keiji narrowed his eyes. Bokuto had been using that one particular emoji a lot. Keiji had no idea what emotion it was supposed to convey.

**koutarou🌠:** i can explainnnn

**koutarou🌠:** in fact, i will explain it to you now

**koutarou🌠:** like

**koutarou🌠:** right now

And then Bokuto didn't, for three more chat bubbles. 

**koutarou🌠:** OKAY I WILL REALLY EXPLAIN NOW BUT PROMISE ME YOU WON'T BE MAD AT ME OKAY

**koutarou🌠:** please keiji u have to promise me 🥺

**koutarou🌠:** or else my lief is over

**koutarou🌠:** so

**koutarou🌠:** i may have………………….. lied

**koutarou🌠:** BUT!!!!!!!!! i had a crush on you 😔 AND I WANTED MORE REASONS TO TALK TO YOU

**koutarou🌠:** so i lied and told u i lost it BUT i had it in my bag the whole time

**koutarou🌠:** i rlly just wanted to spend more time with u keiji 🥺🥺 u need to understand that i liked you so MUCH (still do i like you a lot) and i was SUPPOSED to come clean to u about it when we started dating but it got too awkward!! ad n konoha said it was too late

**koutarou🌠:** but REMEMBER we got to go on dates because of it!!! remember?? i took you to that hole-in-the-wall onigiri café and you let me feed you the small ones

**koutarou🌠:** please dont be mad

There were two chat bubbles remaining, but Keiji couldn't resist replying back,  _ Of course I'm not mad. I think it's rather... _

He thought of appropriate words. Cute? Definitely. The idea of Bokuto going out of his way, even as to risk Keiji being annoyed at him, just so he could take him out on ongiri dates was cute. But it didn't fully cover the breadth of the feelings he was experiencing in his chest, something like he was being punched and covered in warm blankets at the same time. Adorable was underselling it, thoughtful felt too neutral. He tapped on the screen twice in impatience. 

_...smart, _ he settled, finally, suddenly remembering something bizarre Konoha had said about Bokuto's antics being genius at a different angle. 

Then, he looked at the last two messages Bokuto sent.

**koutarou🌠:** also…. you look really cute in that sweater, keiji

**koutarou🌠:** please send more?

*

Keiji did not send more.

This was veering into dangerous territory.

It wasn't like Keiji had not expected that the conversation would turn this way, eventually. They were a healthy, sexually active couple in their mid-twenties. Sexting should be on the table, and it should not make Keiji so nervous when they had been using each other's voice to get off these days. He was hardly shy about sex. But.  _ But. _

There were certain risks in sending pictures to your boyfriend for the purposes of getting them all hot and bothered. Data surveillance, for example. Between the two of them, Keiji was the one who’d ever taken a precaution against the invading eyes of the internet. He only had Twitter, the only social media company not yet under the umbrella of the evil, overarching Facebook (Udai made him watch  _ The Great Hack _ —if his hatred towards that mannequin-faced Zuckerberg was not solidified by  _ The Social Network _ , that documentary did its job), and kept multiple passwords for different devices. 

Bokuto, though, had been using the same password he had since high school for his e-mails, multiple social media accounts (he had TiktTok now, which Keiji considered a  _ nightmare _ ), and electronic devices:  _ w0rldch33rm30n! _

If nothing else, he at least used a combination of characters and numbers.

There were ways of keeping your data safe. Keiji knew this. He’d spent the entirety of his lunch break obsessively researching cyber security for the next three days before he tentatively concluded that they were already sort of on the right track. LINE, their primary vehicle of communication, employed end-to-end encryption, two-way verification, and—most importantly—a feature that let users unsend their messages, in case Keiji couldn’t withstand the embarrassment (he had a feeling it would  _ really  _ come in handy). And in the event that miraculously, by some higher power, Bokuto decided he liked the pictures enough to save them for a rainy day… there were secure folders. Double-protected with finger scans and pattern security check. So, still risky, but a manageable risk. 

Keiji stared at the body staring back at him in the mirror.

There was nothing, though, that he could do about the way he looked. 

He could afford to work out more, he supposed. He was thinner than he had been in high school, courtesy of stunting what little growth he could’ve gained in college with too much coffee, conflating breakfast and lunch at 2 pm (why, again, did he  _ always  _ choose morning classes back then?), strapped to his desk writing essays and essays. His lifestyle didn’t much improve after he got employed; overworked and most definitely underpaid (he was working on unionizing his workplace, if  _ only  _ the other editor on the team would get on board already) with the amount late nights he had to spend both at the office and the apartment, he was lucky that he had Bokuto to remind him to eat and sleep. The last time he did anything remotely athletic was when Bokuto bribed him with onigiri to get him to jog around their apartment block over a month ago. 

In short, he was not in shape. 

He could try posing, he supposed, jutting out his hips and arching his back like he’d seen Atsumu do (don’t ask, Keiji didn’t know why his thirst traps kept making their rounds on his timeline, even after he 1) blocked him, 2) muted any and all variations of his name, and 3) scrolled away really, really fast) in his post-gym selfies.

He tried positioning his phone away from his face, just for an extra step of precaution, so his body was only visible from the neck down. He’d foregone his pajama pants ( _ shut up shut up shut up) _ , sticking only to a pair of boxer shorts that made his non-existent ass looked, well,  _ existent _ , and donned on The Sweater. It rode up his thighs when he shifted, and he crossed his legs in an attempt to elongate them—they both had a thing for each other’s thighs (in Keiji’s case, for  _ very  _ obvious reasons), and if he could get his to look just  _ right _ in this curated lighting,  _ perhaps  _ he could have one halfway decent picture that he could send to Bokuto.

He sucked in his stomach, pressed the shutter release, and tried not to cringe as he inspected the picture. He couldn’t look more awkward than in this picture, staged and wrong and inauthentic. He would definitely give Bokuto secondhand embarrassment just by sending it. 

Or… Bokuto probably wouldn’t notice. Not that he wasn’t perceptive, because Keiji couldn’t hide anything from Bokuto even if he tried, but he’d be pleased by the fact that Keiji even deigned to send him pictures to criticize the way he looked. But  _ Keiji _ noticed, and that, of all things, mattered the most to him; if he sent it now, he’d overthink about it for hours, unable to fall asleep, end up unsending it before Bokuto even had a chance to log on to LINE and make an even bigger fuss, because Bokuto would demand an explanation. Then Keiji would have to swallow his pride. 

Say he tried to bear the embarrassment—he wouldn’t survive. It’d be like that time he went to work with the wrong pair of socks. Nobody but him knew, but it still bothered him all day. 

Mortified, he deleted the picture.

*

Udai decided halfway into story-boarding that he wanted to scrap the whole idea and start over, and Keiji’s plans for the next three days imploded. 

“What do you mean,” Keiji said, for the umpteenth time. Udai was probably cutting off two years off his life with every sip of the caffeinated monstrosity he called an  _ energy drink _ . Keiji had expressed his concern many times, but the mangaka was nowhere near listening. “We’re already three days behind schedule.”

“Well, yes, but hear me out,” Udai said. “The first arc didn’t make sense. If we wanted the audience to root for Bokuto—”

“You decided that his name would be  _ Takeshi _ .”

“That’s another thing that I wanted to talk to you about. I don’t think the name fits his character at all. Don’t you? If I’m painting Bokuto as this big, overwhelming presence that completely overshadows our protagonist, shouldn’t his name be scarier? Like, like—”

“Udai-san,” Keiji trampled down the urge to massage his temples. “Please, the deadline is in less than three days. Remember that this is the first draft. No first draft is ever perfect. We’re submitting it to Takeru-san for revisions, remember?”

“Yes, but,” Udai turned around, wild-eyed. Keiji swore he was going to replace every can of energy drink with a water bottle. “But what if Takeru-san likes this version? I don’t even like this version! I’ll never forgive myself if I publish something that I don’t like. What’s an art if the artist doesn’t like it?”

Keiji sighed. There was no easy way around Udai’s spiral; he just had to let him ride it until it dissipated. He sat down across from him, folded his knees under his thighs, and asked, calmly, “What is you don’t like about this version?”

And thus, for the next three days, there was no space left in Keiji’s mind left for worrying about anything else. He texted Bokuto an apology in advance for being more distant as he raced to finish the first draft, and all Bokuto did in response was to send him timely reminders to eat, sleep, and drink. 

(He figured out the exact time, working around the timezone. Keiji had never felt so cared for in his life.)

Keiji was only able to do two out of those things, but Bokuto didn’t need to know. He attended the pitch meeting on D-day half-dead, miraculously delivered his presentation with only a slight hitch, and managed to stay mostly coherent throughout the rest of the day. At 5 pm sharp, he clocked out, ignoring Mirai’s stinky eye as he walked past.  _ Shaming me for going home on time? Not gonna happen, Mirai-san,  _ he didn’t have the energy to stay.  _ This is why we need to unionize.  _

On the train, he checked his phone for new messages. As always, there were always plenty from Bokuto. It must’ve been late in Colorado, somewhere past midnight, but Bokuto’s last message was timestamped at twenty-minutes ago.  _ You should’ve been in bed by now,  _ Keiji scolded him. 

(He was aware of the hypocrisy.)

His message was marked  _ read  _ immediately. 

**koutarou🌠:** i AM in bed!! i just cant fall asleep 

**koutarou🌠:** i keep thinking about you. how much you’ve worked in the past 3 days, how much sleep you’ve gotten

Keiji felt his face getting warm. An ocean away, and Bokuto could still read him cover to cover. 

**koutarou🌠:** i’m just worried you’re gonna get sick, keiji 😢

_ I’ve gotten off work,  _ Keiji typed.  _ Eating dinner then clonking out for 13 hours straight. I promise.  _

**koutarou🌠:** good

**koutarou🌠:** ugh

**koutarou🌠:** i miss you so much keiji

**koutarou🌠:** i wish i could cuddle u while u sleep

**koutarou🌠:** i wish YOU could cuddle me while i sleep 😢😢

Keiji hid a smile behind his scarf.  _ Me too _ , he replied. He hesitated a little before adding,  _ The bed’s really empty without you.  _

**koutarou🌠:** KEIJIIII 😭😭😭😭

**koutarou🌠:** i know. here too

**koutarou🌠:** i mean not that we get king size bed to share!! we get bunks and i sleep on the top bunk, which tsum-tsum says is the better bunk but im now realizing how close i am to the ceiling and i just

**koutarou🌠:** miss u a lot

**koutarou🌠:** miss ur kisses

**koutarou🌠:** ur body

**koutarou🌠:** NOT EVEN IN A SEXUAL WAY SDSDKF

**koutarou🌠:** like just your presence 

Floored, he nearly missed his stop when the mechanical voice above him announced it. He hurriedly got to his feet and shuffled out of the train, cradling his phone close to his chest. He could feel his heart thudding in his ears. Sequestering himself to a corner, he willed himself to breathe, and went back on LINE.

In the midst of his panic, Bokuto had sent him three more messages.

**koutarou🌠:** keiji????

**koutarou🌠:** aaaaahhhhdfdjk im sorry IM SORRY WAS IT TOO MUCH

**koutarou🌠:** please do not leave me on read i will cry :(

_ Not leaving you on read,  _ Keiji wrote quickly.

_ Just taking a breather,  _ he didn’t write. No way he was letting Bokuto know how much his words affected him.  And he wasn’t even sexting. 

_ Just got off the train,  _ he ended up sending.  _ Walking home rn.  _

He slipped his phone in his coat pocket. He wasn’t going to text and walk. He’d ended up walking into a lamppost once, too busy grinning down at his phone to locate possible dangers in his surroundings. His phone vibrated once, then twice. He paused. He should really get going. 

His phone grew heavier in his coat.

He gave in.

**koutarou🌠:** ohhhh thank god i thought u blocked me

**koutarou🌠:** be safe, keiji!! lemme know when you’ve arrived

It was endearing, Keiji thought, the way Bokuto mixed up his grammar and abbreviations. The inconsistency would annoy him if it had been anyone else. Six years strong, he was still trying to figure out what it was about Bokuto that made him an exception to every one of his rules. Keiji smiled, and in a moment of rare bravery, he wrote back,  _ For the record, I miss your body too.  _

Phone went back to his pocket. Giddy, he began his short walk to the apartment he’d been sharing on-and-off with Bokuto for the past six months. The combination of sleep-deprivation and the pure, unadulterated happiness that talking to Bokuto always made him feel put a spring in his step, and he felt twice as lighter and about six times more likely to walk into a lamppost. Possibly deadly, but Keiji wouldn’t mind if he went that way.

Eventually, sleep won over, and he barely registered the instruction on the ramen packet as he stumbled sluggishly into the kitchen, bleary and hungry. If it wasn’t for trying to keep up with Bokuto’s recap of his day over LINE, Keiji would’ve probably drowned in the ramen broth. He knew he should remind Bokuto to get off his phone already, but a selfish part of him wanted to keep him for longer to himself, even only in words. That way, he could pretend the time difference didn’t exist, and Bokuto was simply texting from his dorm in Osaka, making plans to meet over the weekend the next time he had time off.

Keiji missed him  _ so much. _

Throwing away his ramen cup (nearly took his phone with it, too—thank god for leftover quick reflexes from high school volleyball), Keiji blindly made his way to their bedroom, his glasses forgotten on the dining table, dropping his phone on the bed so he could shed off his clothes and take a quick shower. No matter how exhausted he was, he never skipped his afternoon shower. Sleep clung to his eyelids insistently, but he forced himself through the motions, certain that he’d feel a lot better when he woke up clean and not covered in a day’s worth of sweat and grime. 

As his hands were wont to do, he reached for Bokuto’s side of the drawer in search for a change of clothes. He pulled out the first shirt he found—Bokuto’s spare MSBY jersey—and put it on quickly, feeling a bit ridiculous at the way it fell down to his knees. He felt like he was wearing a dress. With this logic, he skipped out on wearing pants. He looked silly, like when he was five and helpless to his cousins forcing him to play dress-up. 

He took a picture and sent it to Bokuto without thinking. 

_ Gonna sleep now. Bye.  _

With the last bit of strength in his body, he dragged himself near his bed and flopped down face-first, phone still gripped in one hand. He was lost to the world within seconds. His phone vibrated once, twice, then several times in quick succession, but deep in the trenches of dreamland, even the apocalypse couldn’t wake him.

*

In the middle of the night, his brain caught up.

His eyes flew open, fully alert all at once.

“Oh, shit.”

*

**koutarou🌠:** i

**koutarou🌠:** keiji……

**koutarou🌠:** dshkfdsjfkdsl

**koutarou🌠:** you’re

**koutarou🌠:** you’re wearing my jersey

**koutarou🌠:** now im even MORE awake than i already am keiji im just

**koutarou🌠:** putting my head in my hands brb

*

Around the same time, Atsumu:

**pain in the ass atsumu-san 💢:** i can FEEL bokuto trashing and turning in the top bunk PLEASE LET HIM SLEEP

**pain in the ass atsumu-san 💢:** i’ll evacuate the dorm tomorrow by 7pm but pls LET ME SLEEP NOW

Keiji blocked his number, like he should've done the first time Atsumu texted him.

*

In the darkness of his room, Keiji examined the picture he sent to Bokuto. 

The lighting was subpar at best, with only the desk lamp on, and it was a bit shaky from how fast Keiji snapped the picture. He wasn’t posed, just standing in front of the full-length mirror drowning in Bokuto’s jersey, the number  _ 12 _ emblazoned across his chest, right hand holding the phone in front of his face, the other giving a thumbs-up. The dorkiest gesture ever created in the history of the universe, and Keiji  _ chose  _ to use it when he was dressed  _ only  _ in Bokuto’s jersey. 

He wondered if death would be kinder. 

It was now 2 am **.** On the other side of the world, Bokuto was probably just finishing up his morning exercise. For his boyfriend’s sake, he hoped Bokuto was able to get a few hours of sleep after Keiji dropped the selfie. 

_ The  _ selfie. As if Keiji had gone ahead and sent him a  _ nude _ . He threw an arm over his eyes and wished for the ground to swallow him whole. It wasn’t even a  _ sexy  _ selfie. He didn’t even put any  _ effort  _ to it. He was just simply wearing something that just happened to be in Bokuto’s possession, something so obviously unlike him that if he were to walk out, there was no mistaking who the item, and by association, himself, belonged to—

_ Oh. _

Keiji blinked once. Twice. 

His whole face burned. 

_ Oh.  _

His whole  _ body  _ burned.

*

To add insult to injury, Miya Atsumu happened. 

(Why,  _ why,  _ couldn’t Bokuto be friends with his brother, instead? Miya Osamu at least had something to contribute to the table. Keiji could wrangle the secret recipe for his pickled plum onigiri out of him, willingly or by force, if he had his way. Then his quality of life would improve. What value had Miya Atsumu added to his life, other than being a menace?)

_ Miya Atsumu's most recent Instagram update,  _ the Bokuto fansite account tweeted. The notification popped up on Keiji's phone during the work day, eleven hours after his dumb mistake woke him up and left him to marinate in humiliation until the sun came up. Keiji still hadn't replied; he didn't know what to say.

(A roundabout way of saying that he was a coward.)

Curiosity got the better of him.  _ What's Pain-in-the-Ass Atsumu-san doing on a Bokuto fansite?  _ he innocently wondered. He let go of the mouse, stretched until his back cracked (ouch, he  _ was  _ getting older), and unlocked his phone. 

Nearly dropped it a second later.

Attached to the tweet, a selfie:

Seven of the current roster of men's volleyball Olympic team—their heights added would amount to somewhere close to fourteen meters—comically squeezed together into one locker room mirror selfie. Atsumu was, as usual, front and center, holding up an oversized iPhone with no casing, like the devil himself, and Keiji was sure there were other people in the picture—he could vaguely recognize Hinata, tanned once again after spending a season away in Sao Paulo, but he couldn't be sure, everything else was kind of blurry when he saw Bokuto, squatting on center right below Atsumu, a towel slung over his neck, grinning unabashedly at the camera with his hair down. 

Keiji loved it when he had his hair down.

_ Hair down Bokuto hair down Bokuto!!!  _ the replies screamed, scrambling to change their profile pictures to a cropped-out version of the selfie, changing usernames to something like,  _ CEO of Hair Down Bokuto _ , whatever corporation that was. 

(One that Keiji would really want to work at, probably.)

After his initial shock receded, Keiji braced himself for another glance at the picture. Bokuto looked  _ good _ , even under unflattering white fluorescent lights, his skin looked as if it glowed. This must be post-shower (Atsumu's caption in the next picture confirmed)—there was no other explanation for why his collarbonesand abs,  _ god— _ were as shiny, why he was barefoot. And Bokuto was aiming finger guns at the camera, too, playful, not at all aware of the effect he had on people. On _ Keiji.  _

There was no mistaking the heat that pooled at the base of his spine. His grip tightened as the  _ want  _ surged up, conjuring up images that were better off kept out of work—the night before his flight to Colorado, marking up the length of his torso like he was staking claim, a physical reminder of the compass that led to home, red and desperate and loving and just this side of angry. Bokuto's hair, spilled across his pillow like a halo, his voice,  _ yours,  _ the way he bit back at Keiji's shoulder blades like he was owning him too.  _ Make no mistake,  _ their bodies seemed to say,  _ we belong to each other. _

Keiji put his phone away and thought aggressively of sales numbers and the amount of emails left unopened on his inbox.

Neither of them would classify as a jealous lover. When dating Bokuto, one must live with the fact that he just simply was a tactile, showy person. Skinship was one of his many love languages, among yelling at your face about how much you meant to him and taking you to his favorite yakiniku place—if Keiji was too busy suspicious of every touch, he'd have to be jealous of every single one of his friends. Leaning over Konoha too closely to review game strategy in high school, leaning on Shirofuku's shoulder in the bus on the way to Nationals, hugs as greetings, the questionably platonic way he would hold hands with Pain-in-the-Ass Kuroo-san sometimes, when the latter came to his matches. Bokuto had so much love to give; restricting him would be just about the same as clipping a bird's wings. Keiji trusted him with his life.

But possession… was another thing.

The words on Keiji's screen failed to give meaning. He put his chin on one hand, trying to remember his kanjis. Nothing made sense.

He imagined, instead, another version of that selfie. An alternative, if you would. Bokuto, the same pose, the same towel around his neck, but with a lot more to communicate through a series of red marks on his chest. His thighs, only visible when he leaped up, arms outstretched, allowing a sliver of skin between his shorts and the beginning of his knee pads, bare and exposed in this shot from the way he was crouching, littered with moon-shaped prints and teeth-sharp bruises.

He imagined the uproar it would cause. The people who would speculate, his fans digging through the pictures he'd posted on Instagram, trying to find his mystery lover. They'd foolishly look for a girl and come up empty—there had never been a girl in Bokuto's life, only Keiji—and forever, they'd be left wondering: who  _ owned  _ Bokuto? 

(No. That wasn't right. They were two, separate individuals in charge of their own selves, yes. But their souls—)

The words on his computer began to make sense.

_ REMINDER,  _ the subject boasted.

There was a certain intimacy in sharing each other's clothes.  _ What's yours is mine, what's mine is yours.  _ They'd shared things long before they began dating; he'd let Bokuto steal his sliced fruit, accept an extra box of milk unprompted before practice, stand shoulder-to-shoulder at the bathroom sink, brushing teeth, showers.

But to be declared as  _ Bokuto's. _

It sent a shiver up his spine.

*

Saturdays were Bokuto's only off-days. On Saturdays, Bokuto slept in, and around 10 am Colorado time, he'd call Keiji until one of his teammates (Hinata showed up often, which Keiji didn't mind, but he'd taken to bringing along Atsumu these days, which Keiji had a few bones to pick with) badgered him for lunch, and Bokuto would make kissy faces until Keiji got too embarrassed and turned off Skype himself. It would be somewhere around 3 am in Tokyo by the time Keiji went to sleep, which displeased Bokuto, but if his boyfriend wanted to blame someone on his unorthodox sleeping schedules, he had the entire Shonen Jump board to blame.

Keiji was determined to have Bokuto wake up to something  _ good. _

He wore the jersey again. He supposed it'd leave more of an impact than The Sweater—it was sweet and nostalgic, but Keiji wanted the complete opposite. He wanted to leave Bokuto hot and wanting.

The blush, no matter how much he tried to calm himself, was still high on his cheeks. He couldn't help feeling embarrassed, so he turned around, back to the mirror. He could read  _ BOKUTO  _ spelled out clearly on his back, like a brand. Like a claim. He took two pictures just so he could have options, then overthought it and took four more, and felt more silly for being  _ nervous  _ than he had ever been in his entire life. He looked through the pictures—they were all the same, how was he supposed to pick the best-looking one—and decided he looked strange from the back. 

From the front, he was a bit more… palatable. He couldn't get his expression to look sultry  _ (shut up yes he practiced in the mirror shut up)  _ enough for his liking, so he ended up hiding behind his phone again, hoping Bokuto would only focus on his clothes. He took three pictures, inspected them. Decided the oversized look was cheapened and overdone. Tried again. This time, he put one hand behind his back, bunching up Bokuto's jersey so it'd fit more snugly, and cringed at how…  _ square  _ his torso was. He'd wanted lines, curved and cinched at the waist, tapering down to his hips—but his body didn't look like that. He wasn't an athlete.

After the fourth time, he had to admit to himself that he was stalling.

Around 10 pm, he gathered enough courage to send Bokuto his top three picks. He deleted everything immediately in a bout of anxiety-induced impulsivity and promptly cursed himself. Why had he been so hasty? He could've waited. He should've waited. If Bokuto asked for more, he'd have to take more and overthink himself to death. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes.  _ Task focus _ , his mind helped,  _ no time for regrets.  _ The pictures were sent. All he had to do was wait for Bokuto's reaction in… a couple of hours. Keiji wanted to bang his head against the table. What forces made him think so confidently that he could  _ wait  _ for more than five minutes without succumbing to a pit of worry and embarrassment?

He should put away the laundry. He hadn't had a chance to this week, trampled with assignments and deadlines and the existence of one Udai Tenma. Then after he should probably brush and mop the floors—it had been days, and—

His phone vibrated.

Keiji's mind kind of short-circuited.

**koutarou🌠:** keiji

**koutarou🌠:** keiji

**koutarou🌠:** you're killing me

_ I thought you'd still be asleep,  _ Keiji replied dumbly, because he wasn't  _ prepared.  _ He should have a couple of hours to at least psyche himself up. This was not part of the plan.

**koutarou🌠:** restless

**koutarou🌠:** so i went on a run to burn off all this excess energy and

**koutarou🌠:** im running back to the dorm

**koutarou🌠:** keiji i

**koutarou🌠:** can i call you

**koutarou🌠:** please

**you:** Wouldn't Atsumu still be there?

**koutarou🌠:** he slept over at hinata's idk

**koutarou🌠:** i banished him

Keiji blinked at his boyfriend's words.  _ This was happening.  _ He eyed the dual clock at the top right of his phone—7 am in Colorado. 

**you:** Isn't this too early?

In lieu of an answer, Bokuto's name lit up his phone.

Keiji nearly dropped his phone. Swallowing, he stared helplessly at his ringing phone, his heart pounding against his rib cage. He should answer. This wouldn't be the first time they had sex—well, masturbated together—through a phone call, but this time felt different. Purposeful, like it had more meaning. And he didn't have _anything_ prepared. 

He answered the call.

"Bokuto-san," he said.

" _ Keiji."  _ Bokuto sounded breathless, his name rushing out of his mouth like he'd been waiting to say his name for so long. "Keiji. Hi."

He heard the sound of a door slamming shut. His throat felt like sandpaper. "Hi," he fought to say. "Hi."

Bokuto didn't respond right away. Keiji wished he could see him. Where would he be? Sitting on his bed—the top bunk—lying down, eyes on the ceiling? What was he wearing? The red of the national team jacket? Would he be wearing the knee pads that Keiji loved and hated in equal measure, or would his knees be bare? Pink against the cold? He licked his lips, waiting. 

"I missed you," Bokuto finally said. His voice made Keiji feel light. He clasped and unclasped his hands; suddenly they weren't so clammy anymore. It felt like he was listening to the whisper of a seashell, wading into the open sea and waiting for the waves to crash, bring him back to shore. 

Keiji laid back against the pillows, pulling the collar of Bokuto's jersey up to his nose. If he tried hard enough, he could almost smell his aftershave, expensive, classy deodorant. "I missed you too," he whispered back.

"I dreamt of you," Bokuto admitted.

"Was it a good dream?" Keiji asked. He ran one hand down the length of the smooth, cool fabric of Bokuto's jersey. Lying down, it came down only to measly cover the top of his thighs. He wished Bokuto could see it. 

Then realized all he had to do was turn on the camera.

"Yeah," Bokuto was saying. "You called me Koutarou."

Keiji's breath hitched. 

"Kou—" he closed his eyes. Waves rushed up to his ears, breaking. "Koutarou." Unfailingly, just like the first time and every other time Keiji called him by his given name, Bokuto sighed, like it was music. Keiji's hands bunch around his chest, gathering up the 12 in his hands—he imagined he was gripping Bokuto's hands tight. "Do—do you want to see me?"

"Yes," Bokuto said, hoarse. "Please, Keiji."

With shaking hands, Keiji peeled his phone away from his ear, pushed himself up to his elbows so he could be eye-level with the front camera. "Turn on your video too," Keiji requested softly. They flipped it on at the same time, and the moment they saw each other's face, they froze, starstruck, before Bokuto broke out in a peal of laughter so sweet that Keiji couldn't help but follow. The waves were still and calm in his ears. 

"Hi," Bokuto said once again. He was sitting up in his bed, as Keiji thought, a cap worn backwards on his head. His hair was a mess when he pulled it off. Keiji wanted his hands all up in it. 

"Hi, love," Keiji said. "Finished a good run?"

"All I could think about i s you."

"Ah," Keiji ducked his head. "Sorry for being a distraction."

"The team can afford me being a little distracted," Bokuto said. His eyes are shiny, intense as liquid gold, and they were intent on Keiji's face. "Keiji. You—you look so good. In my jersey."

Keiji bit his lip. "It no longer smelled like you."

Bokuto's smile was small, fond. "I could send you one of my hoodies."

"Please."

"Are you—are you wearing anything else?"

Keiji cleared his throat. "No."

"Underwear?"

Keiji's face burned. "I—I can take it off."

"No."

There was an air of finality in that voice, something so fierce that had Keiji's breath catching in his throat. He'd never heard Bokuto sound so—urgent. "Keep—keep it on," Bokuto said. "Touch yourself through your clothes."

"I—"

"Do you want to?" Bokuto asked quickly. "Tell me what you want to do, Keiji."

Keiji closed his eyes. His skin had always been darker than Bokuto's, but he'd always been the easier out of the two of them to blush, and he was sure his whole face was red at this point. Bokuto always said it was pretty. Keiji just wished he'd be less embarrassing. "I—I want to follow your lead," Keiji said. 

"Yeah? You want me to tell you what to do?"

Keiji could only nod. He couldn't look Bokuto in the eyes.

"Okay. I'm—I'm gonna take care of you, okay? Gonna make you feel good," Bokuto said. "Will you—will you get the. Um."

Keiji blinked. "Vibrator?"

"Yeah."

Said vibrator was a pink, flamingo-shaped monstrosity that could be motion-controlled through an app that only Bokuto knew the password to ( _ no, Keiji, it's not the same password as my other passwords, promise!) _ . It had been a mutual purchase on Keiji's behalf; a device they could incorporate to their sex lives to make long-distance sex a little less repetitive. Keiji never used it without Bokuto to control it—it didn't feel as fun. 

But.

"I—" why was his throat so dry? "Is it okay if we don't use it? I—I wanna get off on you alone."

Bokuto cursed, falling back against his pillows dramatically. "Keiji. You can't just say things like that like it means nothing," he groaned. "You're gonna kill me."

"Bokuto-san."

His boyfriend lifted his hand. "Koutarou."

Keiji was  _ not  _ going to survive this.

"Koutarou."

Bokuto smiled. "Like that," he murmured. "Keep saying my name like that, Keiji. The way you say it is so pretty."

Keiji shivered. "Koutarou."

"Touch yourself, Keiji. Pretend it's me."

Keiji palmed himself through his underwear. He was half-hard just from listening to Bokuto. He tried not to note every difference in the way their hands felt; Bokuto's, while much stronger, were smaller, though not by a lot, but sturdier and full of calluses from years of volleyball. The friction, when compared to Keiji's long, smooth fingers, was miles better than his own. 

"And then—slip your hands underneath your underwear," Bokuto said. "Don't take it off. Just slide it under. Touch yourself like that. Use lube if you need to, but if you can, just spit on your hand."

The noise Keiji made high in his throat was inhuman. Bokuto  _ remembered _ ; this was how Keiji liked it, whenever Bokuto touched him. From behind, unsuspecting—just after a conference call, coming up behind him and kissing his nape, in the kitchen while doing dishes—taking him by surprise. Spontaneous sex always felt better than days where they were already in bed making out, and god if it wasn't one of the things Keiji missed the most. Being able to touch Bokuto and just—let go. 

"Yeah, like our last vacation, remember? The lake house. In the middle of the night," Bokuto said. "You were so beautiful that night, Keiji."

Bokuto had convinced him it would be fun to skinny-dip in the lake. They'd kissed on the pier, minutes before Bokuto got a mischievous smile in his face and pulled Keiji into the water without a warning, and Keiji tossed and turned in the shock of cold that pierced through his body, screaming bloody murder at Bokuto until he grabbed him by the jaw and kissed him senseless. They'd fucked on the pier, out in the open, gasps and moans swallowed by the gentle laps of the lake against their feet, lost to the night like a message in a bottle.

"You didn't care," Keiji remembered, grasping where this was going. Why it was that one memory Bokuto wanted him to relive. "I remember that. You didn't care if anyone saw us.  _ Who  _ saw us."

"No," Bokuto grunted. 

Keiji spat on his hand. It felt so obscene, to draw it out like this, but Bokuto's eyes went so dark and wide that he couldn't help but do it again, let the saliva drip down his chin, into his collarbones, jutting out against the collar. 

"Keiji," Bokuto whined, and Keiji wrap his slick hand around himself, remembering the hot, delicious slide of Bokuto's entire length inside of him, bare for the first time, their bodies closer than Keiji ever thought in his life. "Fuck, you look so beautiful."

"Like—" Keiji twisted his hands, forgot his words, struggled to remember. "You're one to talk. Look at you. Koutarou—Kou—can I see you? I want—your skin—"

Bokuto didn't need to be told twice. With one hand, he shucked off his jacket and black compression shirt—that compression shirt—and he laid back on the bed, bare-chested, his hair down and looking far, far too soft in the early hours of the day in Colorado. Keiji wanted to fold the world together so they could meet in person, touch skin-to-skin, forehead-to-forehead, Bokuto's shoulders—wide, and those muscles, god—a complete eclipse to his body, covering him fully. Keiji wanted to be held in those arms so badly.

"Want to mark you up," Bokuto's voice was deep, eyes half-lidded. He was touching himself too. "I should've made you scream at the lake house, Keiji. Let everyone know who you belong to. Everyone—everyone keeps saying that they know, that  _ of course  _ you're mine, but I want them to  _ see. _ "

"Kou—"

"Some parts I want to keep to myself, though. Like this face," the edge of his voice softened, and Keiji wanted to melt at sheer affection dripping from his words, like he was something so precious, "this specific face, when you're touching yourself and moaning my name, this is  _ mine.  _ But this—you in my clothes—I want people to see. Is that bad, Keiji? Is that bad how much I want people to know who I have in my life? Who you belong to?"

Keiji shook his head. He couldn't form words even if he forced his mouth to work. He worked his hand faster. 

"You'd let me?" Bokuto said, in awe. "Bite you all over, walk you around in my clothes?"

"Yes," was all Keiji managed to muster. He felt something pull at his stomach, tighter and tighter. "I'm yours, Koutarou—"

"You're close, aren't you?" Bokuto whispered. "Just from my voice. Just from listening to me. You're whipped for me, aren't you, Keiji?"

"Please, please—"

Oh, Keiji thought, his mouth was moving on its own accord. He hadn't meant to beg.

"Anything," Bokuto said readily. "Yeah, we can—come together—"

Keiji's thing was that while he was vocal during everything else, when he came, he was silent. His mouth snapped open, eyes rolling closed, then, like a string pulled taut, he broke apart, spurting into his fingers, sticky and hot over his trembling thighs. "Oh, fuck," he heard Bokuto curse, then a hand slapped down his mouth as he muffled a low groan, coming just seconds after. 

It took a while before his chest stopped heaving. Keiji felt like he was sinking into the mattress, boneless with the exertion. It was a wonder how he managed to keep the phone upright the whole time. With valiant strength, he cracked open one eye, eyeing himself in the viewfinder.

On his chest, across the number 12, a stripe of come had striked it down the middle. A contrasting white on the matte black, a scene so  _ lewd  _ he wouldn't have been able to come up with it himself. This was sacrilege, he was convinced, like putting spray paint on the Mona Lisa, and he scrambled for the box of tissues he kept on his nightstand, only to find it empty.

Bokuto was staring at the spot. Really intently.

"Shit," Keiji said, humiliation pooling in his gut. "Bokuto-san, I'm sor—"

"Keiji."

There—that air of finality. Keiji blinked. Something about it deterred him from defying.

"The next time you come to my games," he said very seriously, "please wear this  _ exact _ same jersey."

*

An epilogue:

**koutarou🌠:** good night keiji 🌏🦉

**koutarou🌠:** also dont worry abt falling asleep on me (i KNEW u would be fretting in the morning so shhh its ok baby)

**koutarou🌠:** you were….. rlly hot i think i definitely lsot a few braincells in there

**koutarou🌠:** argh you probably would chide me for saying something like this via text but shdhfhfk

**koutarou🌠:** i can't hold it in anymore

**koutarou🌠:** u know

**koutarou🌠:** as much as i love seeing u with "BOKUTO" on ur back

**koutarou🌠:** i think i'd love to have "AKAASHI" on me even more

**koutarou🌠:** what do you think?

**Author's Note:**

> i love atsumu. im sorry that he keeps getting clowned even when he isn't part of the story <3 i wrote this kind of in the same universe as [have my sympathy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24909823/chapters/60278257), but there's no need to read that to understand this. (altho it may explain why akaashi is kinda salty w tsumu. but its ok, we love u tsumu <3)
> 
> i'd appreciate your support by retweeting this on[twitter](https://twitter.com/tinysriasih/status/1283735705420611584?s=20) !!!


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